South Carolina weighed in for this election as 16% more Republican than the national average, and was the fourth most Republican state in the nation behind Utah, New Hampshire and Idaho.[1] The presidential election of 1988 was a very partisan election for South Carolina, with more than 99 percent of the electorate voting for either the Democratic or Republican parties, and only four candidates appearing on the ballot.[2]
As of the 2020 presidential election[update], this is the last election in which Richland County voted for a Republican Presidential candidate, while Dillon County would not vote Republican again until 2020. [3] Bush won the election in South Carolina by a landslide 23.9% margin. Bush scored particularly strong wins in the population centers of Greenville and Lexington Counties, winning over 70% of the vote in both. He also powerfully won Spartanburg County, the largest county in the state that had remained a Democratic stronghold into the 1960s and 1970s, with over 60% of the vote.
South Carolina was the only southern state to not hold its primary on Super Tuesday.[6]
George H. W. Bush won South Carolina in the Republican primary and placed first in all six congressional districts. Campbell was the chair of Bush's campaign in the southern region and Thomas F. Hartnett chaired the Bush campaign in South Carolina. Campbell proposed the selection of Jack Kemp or Bob Dole as Bush's vice-presidential running mate.[7]
Dan Quayle was the only major party presidential or vice-presidential candidate to visit the state following the primaries with his tour of Darlington, on September 4.[8]
While 72% of registered voters participated in the election, South Carolina had the second-lowest voter-age population turnout in the country at 38.9%, only ahead of Georgia's 38.8%. South Carolina gave Bush the highest-percentage amount of support in the South. Eleven of the twelve counties that Dukakis won had majority black populations while the remaining one, Marlboro County, had a black population of 40%.[9] 79% of white voters supported Bush while 20% supported Dukakis.[10][11]
Steed, Robert; Moreland, Laurence; Baker, Tod, eds. (1994). The 1992 Presidential Election in the South: Current Patterns of Southern Party and Electoral Politics. Praeger Publishers. ISBN0275945340.
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